13 Sep 2012

Sector 15 Market

"Grahak Devo Bhavah" - Anuved Soap. Pavitra Snan ka Anand. (the customer is like god - New Veda Soap. The happiness of a holy bath)The customer isn’t just the king or queen. The customer is almighty god.

After several years of writing advertising copy that usually fails to make people open their wallets or writing a line that is without a spelling mistake, I’m the wrong person to claim that I understand consumer behavior.

Luckily, I have a longer experience shopping, so this observation is based on that.

It is common knowledge that the choice that the consumer makes (according to Indian advertising, it’s usually for the sake of the health of that easily susceptible child at home or to look and feel like a filmstar) is what affects a lot of things across the world. Looking around, we are making a lot of wrong choices because of the lifestyle we are increasingly adopting. It’s usually for convenience and we bite the hooks that dangle with little emotional words or a minuscule saving that we are led to believe, will add up to a lot.

Caveat Emptor. Buyer’s beware.

Rabindranath Tagore , when he spoke about Zarathustra had these wise words to say, that I will twist to serve my purpose of throwing cowdung on the face of the Indian consumer, including me

“Everywhere in the world, the unrealized ideal is a force of disaster.It gathers its strength in secret even in the heart of prosperity kills the soul first and drives men to their utter ruin.When the aggressive activity of will, which naturally accompanies physical vigour, fails to accept the responsibility of the ideal, it breeds unappeasable greed for material gain, leads to unmeaning slavery of things, till amidst a raging conflagration of clashing interests the tower of ambition topples down to the dust.” “and for this, the prophetic voice of Zarathustra reminds us that all human activities must have an ideal goal, which is an end to itself, and therefore in peace is immortality.”

I know it’s too serious a thing to say after seeing a sticker for a soap brand that the shop keeper thought would serve as a nice welcome message outside his kirana store. But the truth is that every single paisa we spend adds up and through the choices we make, let’s use it make a better world through the choices we make.